Stars
by marnimg
Summary: Royai inspired by the song Vanilla Twilight by Owl City.


**_A/N: So I know I was trying to do the Royai Week prompt challenge on Tumblr, but I failed around day 5 because the prompt for that day ('Music') left me, ironically, uninspired. So I wanted to rewrite day 4 of 'Stars'. I was really disappointed with what I posted originally, so here we go again. Day 4, 'Stars', inspired by the song Vanilla Twilight by Owl City. Also written on a night where I am suffering with nostalgia and missing my own Colonel Mustang. Enjoy. Obviously, I do not own the lyrics._**

 _The stars lean down to kiss you,  
And I lie awake and miss you,  
Pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere._

Roy Mustang stares at the ceiling. The night is heavy and the alarm clock on his bedside table tells him it's 2am. He sighs. The bed feels so empty without Riza.

They don't spend every night with each other, but this is one of the nights where they are apart. Roy can't even remember why they agreed to spend the night separately but he's regretting it now as he rolls over, the side of the bed she usually occupies being cold and uninviting.

Roy sits up in bed. It's pitch black save from the sliver of silver moonlight shining through the crack in the curtains. The moon illuminates Roy's minimal room; a wardrobe and a small desk used for nothing more than for accumulating clothes and stay reports.

Truthfully, Roy's room is unremarkable when Riza isn't lying beside him, the most beautiful being he's ever laid eyes on. Thinking about her sends a pang through Roy's chest.

Passing a hand over his face, Roy stands and throws open the curtains and lifts his window open, a stream of cool night air flooding his small stuffy room. The atmosphere shifts to something unworldly and mysterious, the early morning ambience naturally unsettling to rational thoughts.

Roy sits on the edge of his bed in just his boxers. He gazes at the stars, his mind full of his lover and wishing she was next to him.

 _I'll doze off safe and soundly,  
But I'll miss your arms around me,  
I'd send a postcard to you, dear;  
_ _'_ _Cause I wish you were here._

Riza Hawkeye sighs and rolls over, her duvet feeling too hot and constricting and _lonely_. How can a duvet feel lonely? Because the Lieutenant is missing her Colonel.

The day had been so hot in East City and the night was just as stifling. Riza's room feels heavy and even after throwing her duvet off her body and trying to fall asleep with her window wide open hasn't helped. Instead, from where she's lying on her bed, she turns her head to the side and gazes into the night.

When Riza was a little girl, she loved the night sky.

She could name every star and constellation in the inky blackness, pointing out the different stages of the moon. When Roy became her fathers apprentice, the two of them used to sneak into the garden together and take a blanket outside, laying it down on the dewy grass and lying back to stare at the sky.

It was Riza who taught Roy the paths of the stars and told him that everyone was made from stardust.

Riza smiles a little at this memory now over ten years later, and it makes her miss Roy even more. She wonders if he's asleep, or if like her, he's also lying awake. Black Hayate makes a whine from the foot of her bed and she can tell that her furry companion is also struggling with the heat tonight.

But it's not really the heat that's keeping her from sleeping. As much as she is reluctant to admit it, she can't sleep properly without Roy and his light snoring beside her. Night time is a weird time for Riza; alone with her thoughts, she tends to work herself up, falling back into dark memories of Ishval and her father.

The night sky brings back so many memories for her, too. It was under the night sky that her and Roy had grown close, but it was under the night sky that he had left her for the military. She remembers now how she couldn't look at Roy as the seventeen-year-old broke the news to a fourteen-year-old girl. Instead, she had stared at Capricorn, the pinpricks of light in the sky blurring into orbs as silent tears filled her eyes.

But it was under the night sky that Roy had come back to her, finally returning to the Hawkeye Manor, and to the daughter on the brink of adulthood.

 _I'll watch the night turn light blue,  
But it's not the same without you,  
Because it takes two to whisper quietly_.

Roy is becoming restless and frustrated. He is overtired and time is dragging. The clock now tells him that two hours have passed of tossing and turning, and he's back gazing at the sky. His eyes find Orion's Belt and he remembers how a young Riza taught him the constellations; it feels like a lifetime ago. But then again, the time before Ishval feels like a lifetime ago.

4am looks silent and still and very isolated. The only sound is Roy's breathing and the rustling of his duvet as he fidgets.

Their first kiss had been beneath beneath a blue black sky littered with bright lights and shining planets. Roy remembers now how Riza had barely turned twenty when the conflict in Ishval had ended and they'd been sent back to East City; she was so young to have already had so much blood on her hands. They both were. Roy remembers the first time he noticed how her amber eyes had lost so much of her youthful naivety. She was haunted.

But that night, he'd kissed her for the first time, heart in his mouth and on his sleeve as he'd pulled her towards him, their lips meeting. Riza had melted into him without hesitation, as if they'd always been meant for this.

The more Roy thinks, the more he misses her.

 _The silence isn't so bad,  
_ _'_ _Til I look at my hands and I feel sad,  
Because the spaces between my fingers are right where yours fit perfectly._

It's 4am. Riza is exhausted but wired, full of memories and nostalgia. Her chest feels tight with the kind of emotion one only feels at this time in the morning.

"It's not the same without him, is it, Hayate?" Riza murmurs, leaning over and idly tickling the dog behind the ears.

 _I'll find repose in new ways,  
Though I haven't slept in two days,  
_ _'_ _Cause cold nostalgia chills me to the bone_.

Roy rubs his eyes. He's had enough. Resolute in his decision, he stands and stretches, waking up his lethargic limbs. Pulling on a pair of trousers and a white t-shirt, Roy heads out of his house, locking the door behind him and stepping out onto the dusty streets.

As he walks along the pavement, the sky is beginning to looks lighter and a washed out inky blue. Roy's eyelids are heavy with lack of sleep, but being outside makes him realise he's gone way past tired. He's relying on the muscle memory in his legs to get him to where he knows he needs to be.

 _But drenched in vanilla twilight,  
I'll sit on the front porch all night,  
Waist deep in thought because when I think of you,  
I don't feel so alone._

There's a knock on Riza's door. Black Hayate's ears prick immediately. Riza hesitates a little, but despite her usual caution, there's a deeper part of her that hopes and knows who is knocking.

Riza pads down her hall and opens the door to reveal a dishevelled and heavy eyed Roy Mustang. Her heart lifts to see him there and she can tell Roy looks relieved to see her. Her face breaks into a smile as she wraps her arms around his neck.

"You came." She mutters. Roy holds her tight.

"I couldn't sleep," Roy replies tiredly. "I'm not used to having the entire bed to myself."

"Shut up, Mustang, unless you want to go back to an empty bed."

Riza pulls away and Roy steps into her house, closing and double locking the door behind him, following her into her room. No words are needed and Riza slips beneath the covers, watching Roy discard his shirt and trousers and joining her. Immediately, they are wrapped up together, their limbs wound together like tree roots, skin to skin.

Roy tips Riza's chin up so he can kiss her.

"I feel better already," she whispers.

"Me too."

They both yawn, immediately content and ready to sleep.

"Oh darling, I'm so glad you're here."


End file.
